Police to be given Sherlock Holmes training to improve detection

Home Secretary Theresa May announced plans today to improve the detection rate of police officers by making them read up on the complete works of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's famous detective character Sherlock Holmes.
'Even though Holmes is a fictional character solving fictional crimes that doesn't change the fact that his methods for crime detection were very sound with an almost 100% success rate' commented May 'there is a lot that can be learn't from this great detective and the fact that he never existed should not distract us from using his ideas to improve our own methods of detection'.

Police officers will be asked to read up on all the novels and adaptions written by Conan Doyle in order to learn from the fictional expert sleuth to improve on their knowledge of such things as the possible theft of the crown jewels from 'the riddle of the crown jewels' or to increase their expertise on the dangerous dogs act by reading the 'hound of the baskervilles'.
Critic's of this idea have branded it a waste of time saying that most of the crimes committed are fictional nonsense as to which May countered
'Some of the books like "the case of the whitechapel vampire" are not particularly relevant and "the adventure of black peter" is cutting too near the racial bone for my liking but don't anybody tell me that there is no room in the twenty first century for the events that occured in the "the adventure of the crooked man". By the time this man had finished his crooked adventure he'd commited more crime in one book than the whole of Wormwood Scrubs B wing did in one year alone'.

Response so far from serving police officers across the nation has been mixed but some officers have shown an enthusiastic response to the idea by going out to buy deerstalkers,pipes,canes with some going the extra mile by taking up violin lessons.
'It's like we can act out our jobs in the manner of someone we greatly admire' said Serving Officer DC Mark Howells from the Hampshire Constabulary 'I don't see the problem in learning from someone who was obviously so good at his job even if he never existed. I mean if it wasn't for Z cars us coppers would still be cycling around on bikes trying to pursue criminals' continued a totally missing the point Howells ' I think for the all the shooting and maiming of criminals that goes on in those books that alone justifys the whole idea. If it was alright for Holmes, then it's alright for us' he said as we abruptly finished the interview.

One draw back highlighted by a critic was the possible extra drain that maybe encountered by the NHS. 'This idea is going to put an extra burden on an already over stretched NHS when every copper nationwide is suddenly wishing to enlist every GP in the country to act as his trusted side kick in crime solving' remarked the critic 'the whole idea is not so much elementary but more elemental and I don't want to be struggling to get an appointment with my GP because he's stuck in the middle of Dartmoor chasing after some demented dog'.

5* for sheer effort. While once driving through Bath (the city, not the utility) I noticed a sign advertising the "Baskerville school of Dance" which conjured images of a teacher shouting "move, you little bastards, or I'll set the dog on you!"